The Book of Children - Osho

Osho on Motherhood

Just to give birth to a child is one thing ? to be a mother is totally different. Any woman can give birth to a child; that?s a very simple phenomenon. But to be a mother needs great art, needs great under-standing. You are creating a human being ? that is the greatest creation! A painter paints a picture; we call it great art. Picasso ? we call him a great artist. But what about the mother who created Picasso? A poet writes beautiful poems, but what about the mother who created Shakespeare? We don?t think about mothers as the greatest creative people on the earth. That is one of the reasons why women are not great painters and great poets ? they need not be: they can be great mothers. Why does man try to become a great scientist, poet, painter, this and that? ? he is jealous of women: he cannot create children. He feels impotent.But, one thing is certain: deep down man always feels jealous that he cannot mother, that he cannot carry an alive life in him, that he cannot reproduce life. To substitute it he paints, he sculpts, he writes poetry, he composes music; he goes to the moon, he goes to Everest. He wants to prove at least to his woman that ?I can also do something,? otherwise he feels impotent. Compared to woman?s capacity, he looks like a child, looks almost accidental. His work is not much: giving birth to a child, he simply triggers the process. A small injection can do that; that is not much of a work. The woman passes through those nine months of agony and ecstasy. And then the work is not finished! In fact, then the work, the real work, starts ? when the child is born. And the child brings again a fresh quality to life. Every child is primitive, a barbarian; now the mother has to civilize. Every child is a barbarian, remember; he is animal, wild. And the mother has to give him culture, has to teach him the ways of life, the ways of man. It is a great work.You have to remember that ? that your work has not finished, it has started. Take it joyously! You are creating something immensely valuable ? you are carving a life, you are protecting a life. The work is such that no sacrifice is great enough for it ? any sacrifice can and should be made. One thing. Second thing: don?t take it too seriously, otherwise you will destroy the child. Your seriousness will become destructive. Take it playfully. The responsibility is there! but it has to be taken very playfully. Play upon the child as one plays upon a musical instrument ? and she knows how to play on musical instruments. Let the child be your instrument now. Play carefully but play playfully. If you become serious, then the child will start feeling your seriousness and the child will be crushed and crippled. Don?t burden the child; don?t start feeling that you are doing something great to the child. When I say you are doing something great, you are doing something great to yourself. By helping this child to grow into a beautiful human being, into a buddha, you will be becoming the mother of a buddha. You will not be obliging the child: you will be simply enjoying your own life; your own life will become a fragrance through the child.This is an opportunity, a God-given opportunity. And these are the two pitfalls: either you neglect the child, you are tired of it; or you become too serious about the child, and you start burdening him, obliging him. Both are wrong. Help the child ? but for the sheer joy of it. And never feel that he owes any debt to you. On the contrary, feel thankful that he has chosen you to be his mother. Let your motherhood bloom through him.If you can bloom into your motherhood, you will feel thankful to the child forever.And, naturally, there will be sacrifices, but they have to be made?joyously. Only then is it a sacrifice! If you do it without joy it is not sacrifice. Sacrifice comes from the word sacred. When you do it joyfully, it is sacred. When you don?t do it joyfully, then you are just fulfilling a duty ? and all duties are ugly, they are not sacred. This is a great opportunity. Meditate over it, go into it deeply. You will never find such a deep involvement ? in fact, there is none as it is between a child and the mother. Not even between the husband and the wife, the lover and the beloved ? the involvement is not so deep as it is between the mother and the child. It cannot be so deep with anybody ever ? because the child has lived in you for nine months as you; nobody else can live in you for nine months as you.And the child will become a separate individual sooner or later, but somewhere deep down in the unconscious the mother and the child remain linked.If your child can become a buddha, you will be benefited by it; if your child grows and becomes a beautiful human being, you will be benefited by it ? because the child will always remain connected with you. Only the physical connection has been disconnected; the spiritual connection is never disconnected. Thank God! Motherhood is a blessing.? Osho

Osho on Motherhood and Parenting

To become a mother is one of the greatest responsibilities in the world. So many people are on the psychiatrists′ couches, and so many people are in madhouses, and so many are out of the madhouses. If you go deep into the neurosis of humanity, you will always find the mother - because so many women want to be mothers but they don′t know how to be. Once the relationship between the mother and the child goes wrong, the child′s whole life goes wrong - because that is his first contact with the world, his first relationship. Everything else will be in continuity with it. And if the first step goes wrong, the whole life goes wrong. The desire is there - I can feel it... a tremendous desire to be a mother. Nothing is wrong in it, but one should knowingly become a mother. You are taking one of the greatest responsibilities that a human being can take. Men are a little freer in that way - because they cannot take the responsibility of becoming a mother. Women have more responsibility. So become a mother, but don′t take it for granted that just by being a woman, one is necessarily a mother - that is a fallacy. Motherhood is a great art; you have to learn it. So start learning about it! A few things I would like to say to you: First... 

Never treat the child as yours; never possess the child. It comes through you, but it is not yours. God has only used you as a vehicle, a medium - but the child is not your possession. Love, but never possess the child. IF the mother starts possessing the child, then the life is destroyed - the child starts becoming a prisoner. You are destroying his personality, and you are reducing him to a thing. Only a thing can be possessed: a house can be possessed, a car can be possessed - never a person. So this is the first lesson - get ready for it. Before the child comes, you should be able to greet him as an independent being, as a person in his own right, not just your child. And the second thing... Treat the child as you would treat a grown-up person. Never treat a child like a child. Treat the child with deep respect. God has chosen you to be a host. God has entered into your being as a guest. The child is very fragile, helpless. It is very difficult to respect the child. It is very easy to humiliate the child. Humiliation comes very easy - because the child is helpless and cannot do anything, cannot retaliate, cannot react. 

Treat the child as a grown-up, and with great respect. Once you respect the child, you don′t try to impose your ideas on him. You don′t try to impose anything on the child. You simply give him the freedom - freedom to explore the world. You help him to become more and more powerful in exploring the world - but you never give him directions. You give him energy, you give him protection, you give him security, all that he needs - but you help him to go farther away from you to explore the world. 

And, of course, in freedom the wrong is also included. It is very difficult for a mother to learn that when you give freedom to a child, it is not freedom only to do good. It is also necessarily the freedom to do bad, to do wrong. So make the child alert, intelligent, but never give him any commandments - nobody keeps them, and people become hypocrites. So if you really love the child, the one thing has to be remembered: never, never help him in any way, force him in any way, to become a hypocrite. And the third thing... Don′t listen to the morality, don′t listen to religion, don′t listen to culture - listen to nature. Whatsoever is natural is good - even if sometimes it is very difficult for you, very uncomfortable for you. Because you have been not brought up according to nature. Your parents were not bringing you up with real art, love. It was just an accidental thing. Don′t repeat the same mistakes. Many times you will feel very uneasy... 

For example, a small child starts playing with his sexual organs. The natural tendency of the mother is to stop the child because she has been taught that this is wrong. Even if she feels that nothing is wrong, if somebody is there she feels a little embarrassed. Feel embarrassed! 

That is your problem; that has nothing to do with the child. Feel embarrassed. Even if you lose respectability in society, lose - but never interfere with the child. Let nature take its own course. You are there to facilitate whatsoever nature is unfolding - you are not to direct nature. You are just to be there as a help. So these three things... 

And start meditating. Before the child is born, you should go as deeply as possible in meditation. When the child is within your womb, whatsoever you are doing continuously goes as a vibration to the child. If you are angry, your stomach has a tension of anger. The child immediately feels it. When you are sad, your stomach has an atmosphere of sadness. Immediately the child feels dull, depressed. The child totally depends on you - whatsoever is your mood is the mood of the child. 

The child has no independence right now: your climate is his climate. So no more fighting, no more anger. That′s why I say that to be a mother is a great responsibility. You will have to sacrifice much. 

Now during these coming seven months, you have to be very very alert. The child is more important than anything else. If somebody insults you, accept it, but don′t get angry. Say, ′I am pregnant, and the child is more important than getting angry at you. This episode will pass and after a few days I will not remember who has insulted me and what I have done. But the child is going to be there at least seventy, eighty years in the world. It is a big project.′ Even if you want, note it down in the diary. When the child is born, then you can be angry - but not right now. Just say, ′I am a pregnant mother. I cannot be angry - that is not allowed.′ This is what I call sensitive understanding. 

No more sadness, no more anger, no more hatred, no more fighting.... Both parents have to look to the child. When a child is there, you are both secondary; the child has every preference. Because a new life is going to be born... and it is going to be your fruit. If from the very beginning anger, hatred, conflict, enters into the child′s mind, then you are causing hell for him. He will suffer. Then it is better not to bring a child into the world. Why bring a child into suffering? The world is tremendous suffering. 

In the first place, bringing a child into this world is a very risky affair. But even if you want that, at least bring a child who will be totally different in this world - who will not be miserable, who will at least help the world to be a little more celebrating. He will bring a little more festivity into the world... a little more laughter, love, life. 

So for these days, be celebrating. Dance, sing, listen to music, meditate, love. Be very soft. Don′t do anything hectic, in a hurry. Don′t do anything in a tension. Just go slowly. Slow down absolutely. A great guest is to come - you have to receive him. 

Good, be a mother! Good.

Osho on Babies and Children

People ask me?sometimes a young man, sometimes a young woman?whether it would be a good thing for them to have a baby. I say to them, "First go deep into meditation, then you can become parents; otherwise, what will you have to offer your child? And if you don't have meditation, the child's presence will reveal all your weakness and all your poverty, because you will find you have nothing to give. So it is better that you first go deep into meditation and then become parents, because then you will be able to fulfill the responsibility of parenthood?and not as a duty, but blissfully."Give your children meditation as well as thinking. Thinking will help them to be successful in the world, and meditation will help them towards success in the divine. Give them thought to sharpen their intellects, give them meditation to nurture the sacred in their hearts. A sannyasin says she's pregnant. She'd decided to have an abortion and thought she was happy with the decision, but since then, whenever she thinks about it she feels a tremendous amount of sadness. 

Mm mm. This will be a momentary sadness. If you want to become a mother then you want to get into deeper troubles, because it is not a question that can be easily solved once the child is there. I don't think that you are ready to become a mother right now. But if you want to become one, that's your choice, mm??that's your choice. But then you have to take the consequences also. Otherwise, everyday it happens, some sannyasin comes with two, three children, and they want?. Now what to do with those children??somebody has to take care of them. The mother cannot have her own growth, she cannot work; she has to take care of the children. And then there are complications.Once you have finished your growth-work then it is perfectly good. A child should be a leisure thing, mm? it should be the last luxury. Then you can treat yourself by being a mother, otherwise it will create complications. So you decide. Nobody is forcing you, it is for you to decide: if you want to become a mother then you want to become a mother. But then take the consequences also. People are not aware of what they are doing when they want to bring a child into the world. Otherwise they will feel sorry about that, rather than feeling sorry about an abortion. Just think of both the possibilities: what will you give to the child? What have you got to give to the child? 

I am not saying not to become a mother; I am saying become a mother, but be aware that becoming a mother is a great art, it is a great achievement. First create that quality, that creativity, in you, that joy, that celebration, and then invite the child. Then you will have something to give to the child?your celebration, your song, your dance?and you will not create a pathological being. The world is already too crowded with pathological beings. Let some other planet suffer! Why this earth? In fact right now to think in terms of bringing a child is really criminal. The world is overcrowded. If a person has a little awareness, he will not bring a child into it at any cost; he will sacrifice his motherhood and fatherhood. The world is starving, people are dying and food is not there, the whole ecology is disturbed and life is going to be more and more ugly and hellish; this is not the right time.You will bring your tensions into his being and he will repeat the same kind of life as yours. He will go to the psychoanalyst, he will go to the psychiatrist, and his whole life will be a problem?just as it is with everybody. What right have you to bring a soul into the world when you cannot give the person a whole and healthy being? It is a crime! People think otherwise: they think abortion is a crime. But the child will find some other mother, because nothing dies. And there are many, many women who will be happy to have the child; it is just that you will not be responsible for it. 

I will start telling my people to have children, but let me prepare my people first. Then you will be happy to have a child and the child will be happy that he was fortunate to have a mother like you. Otherwise just go to any psychiatrist and ask 'What are people's problems?' They can be reduced to one thing: the mother. You ask the Primal therapist, you ask our therapists, 'What is the problem with people?' All problems can be reduced to the mother, because the mother was not capable of giving a psychological womb, the mother was not capable of giving a spiritual womb. Psychologically she was neurotic, spiritually she was empty, so there was no spiritual food for the child, no nourishment. The child comes into the world as a physical being, without a soul, without any centre. The mother was not centred; how can the child be centred? The child is simply a continuation, a continuity of the mother's being.And even if you think that it is okay, that the world will look after itself, they will find some way, you still have to think about your child. Are you ready to be a mother??that is the thing. And I don't mean by being ready to be a mother: are you ready to become pregnant. That is not being ready to be a mother; any woman can become pregnant. Pregnancy is not equivalent to motherhood. Pregnancy is a biological phenomenon. Every girl, a healthy girl, physically healthy, is able to become pregnant; but just because you can conceive it doesn't mean you have to have a child. Just think of many other things: you have to give a psychological womb to the child, a spiritual womb to the child. Is it ready? If it is ready, if you think it is ready, go ahead: have a child. 

Just remain as happy and loving as possible. Avoid negativities?that's what destroys the mind of the child. When the child is in formation he not only follows your body, he follows your mind too, because those are the blueprints. So if you are negative, that negativity starts entering in the build-up of the child from the very beginning. It becomes almost built-in, and then it is a long, arduous journey to drop it. If mothers were a little more careful, no primal scream would be needed. If mothers were a little more careful, psychoanalysis as a profession would disappear.You are young so there is no hurry. You can become pregnant again; there is no problem in it. But still, if you feel, 'No, this abortion is going to be very bad for me', have the child. I can only suggest, there is no order in it. Finally you have to decide on your own. Nobody can ever throw responsibility on me because these are just suggestions. Take it or leave it; that is up to you. And you are always responsible. If you take my advice, then you are responsible; if you don't take it, you are still responsible. I am just outside it. For me it is perfectly good, whether you become a mother or not is not a problem for me. But one should see all the implications of it. If one sees all the implications of it, very few people will decide to become fathers and mothers. And it would be a better world if fewer people decided to be mothers and fathers. It would be less crowded, less neurotic, less pathological, less crazy. Think about it. And don't be worried, just think; there is no hurry. For three days think, and then come to a decision and do whatsoever you feel. believ03 A sannyasin says: I feel that I'm pregnant since we've been here. Is there any meditation or thing to do that will be helpful for the baby or for us? 

Sit silently as much as you can, enjoy nature. Be with trees, birds, animals, because they are really innocent. They are still part of the garden of Eden?only Adam and Eve have been thrown out. Even the tree of knowledge is still in the garden of Eden; only Adam has been thrown out. So be with nature more, and relax so that the child grows in a relaxed womb, non-tense; otherwise from the very beginning the child starts becoming neurotic.Psychoanalysis is doing great business because of mothers, because according to psychoanalysis man's only problem is the mother. If all the schools of psychoanalysis could be reduced to one single problem, it would be the mother. The mother is really of great significance because for nine months the child will live in the climate of the mother; he will imbibe her mind, her whole mind. So don't be negative. Be more and more in the yes mood?even sometimes when it looks hard. But that much sacrifice has to be made for the child. If you really want to have a child of some JUSTIFY">So don't be negative. Be more and more in the yes mood?even sometimes when it looks hard. But that much sacrifice has to be made for the child. If you really want to have a child of some value, of some integrity, of some individuality, and a happy child, then that sacrifice has to be made. That is part of being a mother?that sacrifice. So don't be negative at all; avoid all negativities. Avoid anger, avoid jealousy, avoid possessiveness, nagging, fighting, avoid these spaces. These you cannot afford?you are creating a new being! The work is of such importance that one cannot be silly and stupid. Rejoice more and more, pray, dance, sing, listen to great music?not pop music. Listen to classical music, which is soothing and goes very deep into the unconscious, because the child can hear it only from there. 

If for these nine months you can avoid sex as sex, that will be a great gift to the child. Then his life will not be so obsessed with sex as people's lives are. Either they become too indulgent?which is obsession?or they become too repressive, too holy, too saintly; that too is obsession. In the world only these two types of people exist, and both are ill, both are pathological; the sinner and the saint are both pathological.To her husband, Osho says: And help her in these days so that she can be more positive. Don't provoke her into negativity. Give her more and more time so that she can sit silently, be with the trees, listen to the birds, the music. Avoid any situation in which you think it can become a provocation for her to become negative. Be more loving, rejoice in each other's silence more, because you are both giving birth to something which is divine. Each child is divine, and when something great is going to happen, a great guest is going to come to your home, you don't fight. And this may be the greatest guest that will ever come to you, so for these nine months be careful, cautious, watchful. Be more loving and less sexual. If sex happens out of being loving, it's okay?but not for sex's sake itself. From the very beginning that gives the child a deep-rooted sexuality. Sex is perfectly good in the context of love, as part of love?just as you hold hands and hug each other, as a part of love. One day you make love too but as part of love. It is not sexuality then; it is just a communion. You have not been thinking about sex; it has happened on its own. Playing with each other, being with each other, it has happened. You were not thinking of it, you were not brooding about it. A totally different kind, a third kind of human being, is needed. And that third kind of being will have this quality: no obsession with sex this way or that?neither against nor for; he will be exactly in the middle. Out of love sometimes he will move into sex, but then sex has a spiritual quality. It is not for sex itself. Because there will be no obsession with sex indulgence he will never become repressive. And because sex will have a spiritual quality it will give him glimpses of samadhi and he will start moving upwards, very slowly, very gradually, with no fuss about it. Otherwise spirituality makes so much fuss. 

In fact, that should be a must?because if the child's life starts with your pain, a conflict has started. The beginning is bad, and you will never have a real friendship with the child. He will look like the enemy: he has given you so much pain. So the very beginning of your relationship will be poisoned.A real spiritual person will not make much fuss; there is no need. He simply enjoys it, so he is not renouncing, he is not doing something great. He does not expect the whole world to give him attention and come and pay homage saying, "You are a great man because you have renounced this and you have renounced that." He does not renounce anything at all. He enjoys everything and because of his total enjoyment his energy starts becoming more and more delightful, and finally more and more lightful. So just these hints?you have to work them out. Good! A sannyasin who is pregnant asks Osho for advice about the actual child birth. Just remain prayerful, meditative and delighting. When you start feeling that the child is coming, relax absolutely and help the child, don't fight it. Mm? we have been conditioned in such a way and we have been told that childbirth is very painful to the mother. That idea has been repeated so long that it has become very deeply rooted in us. It is an auto-hypnosis; there is no pain really. You believe, then it is there. In fact, there is a possibility of great ecstasy when the child is born. Once you can know that ecstasy, no love-making will ever give you that much ecstasy again?it is simply tremendous! So when you start feeling that the waves are coming, just cooperate, enjoy, start moving with the child, help the child?and wait with great expectation, that great ecstasy is going to be there. You will feel a great orgasm coming all over the body. Don't be shy?if you want to sing, sing; if you want to just utter gibberish, utter gibberish; if you just want to make sounds, make sounds; if you want to sway and move, sway and move. Don't bother about what others will say?just go into whatsoever spontaneously happens, and you will have known a great experience! If the child can give you great ecstasy, you will be grateful to him. And then there is the possibility of great friendship, of great love. So it is a must?not only for your being, but for the child's existence in the future, it is a must. What I am saying is that if it happens then the child will be very sane and will not have many kinds of mental illnesses that are naturally there with every child, with every human being, because the very beginning is wrong. The birth of a child in pain is a bad beginning, not a good start?the relationship is already of the enemy. 

Invite a few sannyasins?they can dance and create joy and some energy there. Very good! madmen24So for these six or seven days, just relax, prepare, be joyful, meditate, pray to god. Just remember me, and when the child is coming take the locket in your hand and be ready for a great orgasm. And if it comes?it will come, I will see that it comes?don't resist! If you resist, it will be destroyed. It cannot come against you, it can come only through your cooperation. The primitives know how beautiful it is to give birth to a child. Never again does a woman come to that peak? because it is the same energy source from where you attain the sexual orgasm. The child will be pushing the same energy source, will be trying to come out of the same tunnel from where you attain your sexual orgasm. In fact, why has this idea of pain arisen? My understanding is that sometimes if pleasure is too much it looks like pain?it is unbearable, then it looks like pain. That's why this idea that childbirth is painful has arisen in the human mind. It is really too pleasant?it is such intense pleasure, more than you have ever known before, so you misinterpret. It is unbearable; the happiness of it is so much, intolerable, you start feeling that you will die. So the idea of pain has arisen. And once it has arisen, by and by, it has got into the deepest unconscious and from there it is functioning. Just remember for these six days, every night when you go to sleep, remember that it is going to be a great day, a great experience, and the highest peak that you will ever attain. And it is going to be so! Let that day be of great ecstasy and meditation, of great joy. And if you can attain to an orgasm it will be a blessing to the child, because he will be coming out of a great orgasm, and you will feel grateful, always grateful towards him. You will always remember that day?it is impossible to forget it. And your relationship with the child will have a different quality. Everything is good, mm? To the father of the baby: Be there and help her to be ecstatic?and don't be there with a long face! Tell jokes and enjoy, mm? Don't be there with a long face?there is nothing to be sad about. Where will you be?in Ajit Saraswati's maternity home? (Ajit Saraswati is a sannyasin gynaecologist) He replies: Yes, we're going to rent a room? You can be there, mm? And a few sannyasins can be there. You can put on some music and incense and dance and sing. When a new guest is coming?! A sannyasin asks: I'd just like to ask you about sannyas for my children. I have two children, six and eight, and they're probably going to come back with me in January for about six months. I have some doubts about sannyas, that it seems to be another form of baptism to put on them. Could you say something? 

So bring them here, let them feel, and if they start feeling something then it is good. Mm? the day they want to take sannyas don't even come with them?let them come alone! stars12No need to make them sannyasins just now; that will be a baptism and that is not good, mm? Let them come, let them feel. If they decide on their own, that's good; don't decide for them. Anything decided by somebody else is ugly; it is a kind of imprisonment, an indoctrination. So whether it is Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan doesn't matter. It can be my sannyas?it doesn't matter. If it is enforced by somebody else, with good wishes; that is not the point; that is not doubted at all?. When you want your children to be sannyasins you want it with good wishes?you feel that will be a blessing for them, but that is your feeling ?and even if it is right, it is wrong to impose it on them?unless they decide on their own. So all that we can do for children is to just bring them into the situation where they can feel. And children are very perceptive?more perceptive than they will ever be again. Their eyes are more clear, they can see truth more easily than grown-up people because grown-up people have learned many things; the grown-ups naturally are conditioned more. Their mirror is no more a mirror: it has many clouds around it and much dust has gathered. So if you feel that something good is happening anywhere and you would like to share it with your children, bring the children to the situation and help them to be there, that's all. Never for a single moment enforce anything?don't even persuade. Don't even utter a single word about sannyas?let them come. They will be able to see, and if they feel, that's good; then they have the right to move into it. There is another kind of indoctrination which is anti?you can prevent them: when they want to do something, you prevent them; that too is the same. If the son of a Mohammedan wants to become Christian he will be prevented. That is in a negative way but again you are forcing something. If you love the child you love the child's freedom too. And never for a single moment think 'How can children think? How can they decide for themselves?' That is one of the oldest pieces of nonsense prevalent in the world?that people think 'How can the children think for themselves? We have to think for them!' If they cannot think for themselves then nobody else can?and I am not saying that they will always think rightly. Freedom to think implies freedom to go wrong; that's part of freedom. If you always insist for the right then you don't give the freedom at all. If you say only right should be done, then you decide what is right and you decide what is wrong and then again the freedom is crippled. Freedom means to do anything they want to. To a sannyasin, whose son had just been initiated into sannyas, Osho says that one should respect one's child, and that now her son was a sannyasin, she should regard him as a brother? A child is born to you, but he does not belong to you. Always remember that he has come through you. He has chosen you as a passage, but he has his own destiny. 

They may not be able to formulate it in so many words, but they immediately feel it. So never be untrue with children because they will immediately know it. And once a child comes to know that his parents are untrue, his whole trust is lost. That is his first trust in life, his very base, and if that is lost he will become a sceptic. Then he cannot trust anybody. He cannot trust life, he cannot trust God, because those are very far away things. Even the father deceived, even the mother deceived; even they were not reliable, so what to say of anything else now?So giving him sannyas does not mean that you have to structure him. You are not to force anything on him. Sannyas is freedom, so give him freedom to be himself, and be alert not to impose anything. Love him as much as you can, but don't give your thoughts to him. When you meditate, just persuade him to be with you. Sometimes dance with him. And children can go into meditation very easily?one just has to know how to help them towards it. They cannot be coerced; that's impossible. Nobody can ever be coerced into meditation, because coercion is violence. How can one coerce meditation? It comes when it comes. But you can persuade. You can just invite him with tremendous respect. Dance with him, sing with him, sit in silence with him. By and by he will start imbibing it. By and by he will start enjoying the play of it. It cannot be a work for him. It cannot be a serious thing for him?it should not be for anybody. It can only be a play. So help him to play meditation?Let it be a game. Make it a game with him, and by and by he will start loving it. He will start asking you 'When are we going to play meditation?' And once he starts learning some ways of silence, then meditation has started working on him, and one day you will see that he is deeper in meditation than you had ever expected. So you have to make a meditative atmosphere. To make somebody a Christian is easy. You have just to impose a certain ideology, a catechism. You have to teach him that God is a trinity, and that Jesus is God's son and things like that, which can be learnt very easily, and which are very destructive, because the person will never be free to explore. These prejudices will always be there. So when I give sannyas to a child, it is not that you have to impose an ideology on him. You have just to persuade him towards meditativeness. It has nothing to do with any ideology?Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan; they are all irrelevant. It is more like love?it is a feeling. And if he can learn something of it, then it starts growing on its own. One day he will be grateful for it?that you helped him. Right now he cannot understand, so the whole responsibility is yours. And this is my observation?that if grownups are a little more meditative, children imbibe the spirit very easily. They are so sensitive. They learn whatsoever is there in the atmosphere; they learn the vibe of it. They never bother about what you say. What you are?they always respect that. And they have a very deep perceptivity, a clarity, an intuitiveness. You may be smiling but they will immediately know that it is false, because your eyes will be saying something else?and even more than that, your whole body will be saying something else, your gesture will be saying something else?that you are angry, that you are just pretending, that it is just a policy. 

Just go and see what is possible. But don't be hard, mm? If it can be arranged in such a way that they don't suffer, arrange it and come. If you feel that it will be too much for them and they will suffer too much, then be there for a few more months and settle things by and by. Don't be in a hurry. By and by settle things?.Once a child learns?and every child is going to learn; it is impossible to deceive a child. There is no method discovered up to now on how to deceive a child. He simply knows where you are, who you are. It is intuitive?it has nothing to do with his intellect. In fact, the more intellectual he will become, the more he will lose this intuitiveness, and he will not be able to see things as they are. Right now a child is immediate. He simply looks through and through. He looks at you and you are transparent. So never be deceptive?. Love him and allow him to be a little meditative, and much is possible. That's why I say it is a great responsibility you have taken upon yourself. I cannot give him sannyas directly. It is through you, via you. So now you have to take care of two sannyasins?yourself and him. passio20 A sannyasin, who is leaving, asks if she should stay at home and take care of her husband and children, or continue her work as a therapist. Osho asks if she needs to work for financial reasons, and she replies, "No". I think there is no need to work, but you can help the Meditation Centre there. Devote your time to the centre, whatsoever time you can give. And if they need it sometimes, you can lead groups there. But don't make it a whole time thing?so the family is not neglected. The family should not be neglected?because once children are neglected they will become accustomed to it, but they will become hard and for the whole of their lives they will suffer from the lack. If they have not been cared for they will not be able to care for others. This is a great problem that is facing the modern society, particularly in the West. If the father goes to work and the mother also goes to work then the children are almost orphans. And the presence of the mother in the home cannot be substituted by anybody else. It is not only a question of physical caring; it is a question of spiritual nourishment. So you cannot give the work to somebody else who is paid for it. Then it is totally different, its quality is different; there is no love involved in it. So, on the surface everything will be taken care of but deep down something will be missed. And the children may not ever become aware that they have missed something, but the whole of their lives will show it. That's what is happening on the psychiatrists' couches and in the mental hospitals. Out of four persons, three persons are mentally disturbed and the fourth is also suspicious. And love is the greatest therapy. So you will be running therapy groups for the children of some other mothers who have not loved them. And then some day your children will need therapy groups from somebody else! No need to work?take care of them. But you can devote?. For your own growth it will be good, you can devote some time to the centre. A sannyasin who is leaving says he is unsure whether to return or stay in the West and work to support his wife and children. He would prefer to be here. Just go and see. Just explain the whole thing to them?that you would like to come here?. 

He cannot understand what is happening, but he can go into it. Just the moment I see into his eyes he starts moving into samadhi. He can imbibe that opening.It is important for you to stay here, but that responsibility is there and those children will unnecessarily suffer, so that has also to be looked into. And sometimes to fulfill your responsibility is a great meditation?because you are sacrificing. They are your children and this is your responsibility, because you have given birth to them, to help them so that they can be on their own. Don't make it just a duty but a joy. Just go and see. If it is possible that nobody is hurt and things can settle, help them to settle and come back. If you feel it is difficult and it will not be possible, then wait, within a year, things will settle. Don't be worried, mm??something will happen! Just see how things work out, but don't be in a hurry and don't be hard. Be loving and try to manage, I think within a year things will settle. Good! If what I am saying is heard, if what I am saying becomes prevalent in the world some day, then children will really love their parents, then children will be really in tune with their parents because the parents will not be enemies to them, they will be friends. parad106 A child asks: What is my meditation??I don't know what a meditation is. That's good! Mm, but you want to know? Mm mm. Start dancing! Wild dance is your meditation?. To the mother: Tell him to go to the music group in the night so he can start dancing there. To the child: and when you are back home for at least twenty minutes, thirty minutes every night, dance. Put on any music and dance, enjoy dancing, and that will be your meditation. halle27 When little Siddhartha first came? he was a small child, very small, maybe three years old or four years old. I can see exactly the moment he came to me. He had brought a small rug, and he came as if he was a grown-up?. He unrolled the rug like the Zen disciples do, and he touched my feet. All those who were present started laughing. This little boy was doing a real thing, which is not expected from such a little boy. He touched my feet with great gratefulness, with grace, and then sat down on his rug. That's why I gave him the name Siddhartha. Siddhartha was Gautam Buddha's name given by his father. It is as beautiful as Buddha. It means one who has arrived: Siddhartha, one who has found the meaning, one who has found the significance of existence. An innocent mind can catch, can imbibe samadhi?he may not be able to understand what is happening. 

Many times it happens: when little Siddhartha comes for close-up or for charansparsh I can see it happening. He cannot understand what is happening, but he immediately goes into it. He will not be able to retain it because he is not aware of what happens, but he is open to me?.

Spiritual Motherhood is a greatest experience-Rajitha

Every mother should teach fearlessness to the children

ధ్యాన మాతృత్వం (కరపత్రం) - 2

ధ్యాన మాతృత్వం (కరపత్రం) - 1